MW68 P-Mode situation

Thanks for the info for everybody who I talked to in PM, I’ve caught up on everything and talked to people on both sides of this thing.

There’s a pressing question of whether or not certain players are exploiting a bug, and whether or not they will be banned, we’ll have a rollback, etc.

Before I get into specifics, I’d like to remind everybody that we don’t presume guilt here.

We gather info, evaluate it, and come to a conclusion based on evidence. Some of the players here who are presuming guilt on others would themselves be banned in earlier rounds had we been so quick to say “Yep, guilty. Ban.”.

Anyway, @Picklearmy has explained this situation quite well already:


P-Mode in early conflict

The reason this is popping up now is because wars don’t usually happen this early. It’s that simple.

UA may be a reason for these early wars, and if so, then it is doing exactly what I hoped it would by exposing these kinds of problems that need to be fixed for the long term. If we improve P-Mode as a result, then the game will be better for this experience.

I know that’s little solace for those who feel like they’ve been wronged, but IC can only improve by us experiencing and confronting these shortcomings.

So the big question now:

Does this constitute a rule violation?

No.

P-Mode is working how it always has. There is no bug. There was nothing for anybody to report.

@Airwing has since explained everything to me because he wanted to, not because he had to. He could have remained silent on the matter and kept this up his sleeve for future rounds, but he didn’t. I hope that others emulate this approach in the future.

As for intent, I told a few others this:

Remember that deception is a tactic too; your enemy may be manipulating your perception of the circumstances. If a player says “I knew about this” that doesn’t necessarily mean that they did, nor is it illegal for them to lie about it.

In this case, whether or not this was a planned use of P-Mode makes no difference: it would have been legal either way. I only bring this up because a few have asked me about it privately. I am seeing less a situation of intentional exploit and more a situation of controlled perception and playing on an unexpected situation.

What about the rule against loopholes?

Some have cited this rule:


Undefined Rules

This is a fair point, but the latter half of that rule is key because we can’t anticipate every situation.

We haven’t been confronted with this before so there is no precedent. I have to therefore make a call, and, being that I prefer to foster player freedom I am saying that this type of behavior is something that we actually want to encourage.

Yes, if players do this intentionally it is sneaky, clever, and even dirty. However, it is also creative. It throws back to IC’s heyday when players had to actually think about new strategies instead of just playing “paint by numbers” like we’ve been doing for the last 10 years.

So break the game. Go nuts. Find ways to show how Imperial Conflict sucks because it is imbalanced. That’s the only way we will ever improve anything. We are done with the era of sitting round after round seeing who can best optimize econ for the millionth time.

A comparison to last round.

Fwiw, a loophole happened last round when several players changed their races multiple times after SoR, before I had stated that it was legal to do so. Some of those same players who intentionally exploited this dubious mechanic are now calling for others to be banned when they find themselves on the other side of that coin.

We need to treat these things consistently, and if that SoR exploit was fine last round then P-Mode was fine this round.

Just as we fixed the former, we should now take this as an opportunity to ask how P-Mode can work better. Just because this has been deemed legal doesn’t mean that we can’t ask ourselves how to improve the feature around it.

Take matters into your own hands.

To those players who will be unhappy with this decision: I suggest that you take advantage of the open-ended nature of UA.

Find others who share your scorn for this situation and plan your revenge.

The days of being babysat by Staff are over. You guys now have the freedom to enforce your own rule of the land.

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Makes all the difference in the world if reported the issue in a timely manner.
Thank you for looking into this.

HUhtWlw

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Not a suitable topic for the popcorn panda at all. I’m outta here.

^^ this.

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^THAT PART^ :clap:t5::clap:t5::clap:t5:

Multi’s and farming are still frowned upon…

This is only important if players are willing to take that frowning and enforce that value.

If we don’t like it, we should be expressing that better in game.

Anyway. Sightly off topic… sorry!

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Response

Actually, I can almost guarantee that players have been put into P-Mode just days into a round. What may indeed be a precedent is the amount of discussion and bitching about it in the forums.

Raiding during exploration phase has ALWAYS existed. Sometimes it was just to settle a personal grudge. Other times it was a deliberate tactic to liven up the game.

Either way, in the Golden Age of IC those players almost always would get thumped hard by others for breaking early-round etiquette. Generally such culprits did not finish the round.

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I mean specifically, a precedent/ruling on whether or not this usage is illegal.

But you are right: this very is a matter of etiquette, and I am looking forward to players being able to decide these things for themselves once again.

I’ve been on both sides of early raids. They work because people do research jumps. Every strategy in this game needs to have a counter strategy or else everyone will play the same.

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Vacation mode being used as a warfare tactic was hotly debated and eventually scrapped.
Protection mode, during my early rounds in IC, was viewed as an annoyance, but little else.

Frankly if players being able to decide things for themselves is the model then p-mode should be removed.

The community will determine what is and isn’t a respectable amount of raiding and retaliation and the morale system already keeps things in check.

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Don’t remove pmode from the game. It’s already not way too difficult to take half of someone’s planets in a single tick raid. Getting all of them in one tick would be too much. Pmode already doesn’t apply to research builds since the planets pass back and forth so there’s no issue there either.

I don’t think we should currently, but in the long term I’d like the game to be balanced enough that @RenegadeDamon’s suggestion would be safe to do.

We’ll get there eventually.

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I think removing pmode would be the smartest thing to do. Thank You

I don’t think pmode needs fixing. The above situation is a side effect of research jumps which are what should be fixed.

They work really well because when your research builder takes on the planets to be jumped the construction boost doesn’t get updated until the tick after the planets have been swapped. This also happens with econ or resource science when swapping the planets back. You’ll get a “Magic Tick” of income bonus which can work out to be huge.

If there were some way having science bonuses to be adjusted when the planets are swapped and not the following tick then it should limit this strategy and force fams to find alternate methods.

As a side effect it may also limit early round raids or make them harder.

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Or the n00bs of IC could be more open to learning and not go all “I Love you darrk, im gone be just as proud and stubborn as you when i grow up” than you might have know how pmode worked and alot of other tips and tricks :wink:

Do you want me to start a thread called: AW’s pro tips ?

Sure, TBCH

While it exists I may as well learn to use it, it was a smart move wingnut, good job.

I still think it should still be removed with @I_like_pie vision of the game being self moderated. The community should determine when enough is enough.

Also, even I think you can agree I am a far cry from being a n00b wingnut, maybe not as good as you or any other elite on here, but save the n00b comments for people that deserve the title.

Yes, I’d like to see your Top Ten Tips. :blush: